


Their Situation

by xswestallen



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Awkwardness, Childhood Friends, Friendship/Love, Living Together, Love Confessions, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 13:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12433989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xswestallen/pseuds/xswestallen
Summary: Barry and Iris house sit for Joe and sleep in Iris' old bedroom. It brings up some awkwardness about their feelings for each other while they were living together as teens. They've never talked about it before, but their situation was...... unique.





	Their Situation

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this with the intention of it being smut. But, I knew some westallen haters would trash this and call it incest. I admit their situation was weird and a little awkward, but it's in no way, shape, or form incest. They aren't related. Joe didn't adopt Barry. They aren't step-siblings because neither of Barry's parents ever married Joe. They were just friends who because of a tragedy lived together when they were teenagers.

Iris flicked on the light in her former bedroom at Joe’s house. She walked in with Barry following close behind her. The two are house sitting while Joe is away at a police convention and Wally is visiting Jesse. Iris took her toothbrush, hair brush, and nightgown out of her suitcase. Barry was standing awkwardly in middle of the room, arms folded. He looked around at remainder of Iris’ things left in the room. Barry put his palm to the wall that separated her room from the room that used to be his. A sly grin crossed his face as he remembered the combined excitement and agony of being one room away from his crush during his hormonal teen years.

“You’re acting weird. What’s wrong?” Iris asked him.

Barry laughed a little, confusing Iris even more. 

“When I went to Earth-2 your doppleganger asked me why I was acting weird. It’s still freaky how we have doubles in a parallel universe.” Barry explained.

Iris raised her eyebrows. “Ok, but you were acting weird before I said that you were acting weird.”

Barry sat on the end of Iris’ old bed. “It’s this room.”

“What about this room?” 

“It’s strange to be spending the night in your childhood bedroom now that we’re a couple.” Barry flopped back onto the mattress. He smiled up at the ceiling. “Hey, remember when you had a poster of Justin Timberlake up there?”

“Shut up.” Iris cringed at her teenaged, fangirl self.

Iris went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready for bed. While she was in there, a troubling thought crossed her mind. When she came back into her bedroom, Barry was still resting on the bed.

“Bear,” she began in a strained voice.

“Mmm.” Barry acknowledged her without opening his eyes.

“Do you think it’s weird or even…..I don’t know, creepy that we spent 7 years living together and now we’re a couple?” Iris shifted her feet nervously as she asked. 

She never thought of Barry as her brother. No, he had his own mother and father. They just couldn’t be there for him the way her father could. Barry was never adopted by Joe. Henry kept his paternal right till Barry turned 18. Iris and Barry weren’t related in any way, they just lived in the same house from the time they were 11 till they went away to college.

Then again, people used to talk about them like they were siblings. Joe did consider Barry his son. Mason Bridge once called Barry her “best friend/brother”. Iris shuttered at the thought. She wished she could push these thoughts out of her mind. 

Barry had thought about the awkwardness of their situation before. When his mom died, he had to move in with the girl he had a crush on. That was confusing. It made things more difficult but also somehow easier. Having his best friend there during the darkest point in his life was what got him through the days that seemed impossible. But, Barry was a teenage boy and felt ashamed of his infatuation with the girl he grew up with. Barry dealt with that shame and overcame it a long time ago, so he wasn’t phased by Iris’ question.

“It was weird, unconventional, and I felt self-conscious about my crush on you for years because of it.” Barry told her.

Iris was upset to hear this. She was hoping he’d say that it was a little odd, but fine. It mortified her to realize he’s been thinking about this for years.

“But, I loved living with you. It’s thanks to your support and Joe’s support that I was able to be ok after such a tragedy. I don’t know and I don’t want to think about what I could’ve ended up being if you hadn’t given me all the love you did. 

Being a teenager and having crushes is always awkward. It was just amplified for me. There were a million reasons I was too scared to tell you I loved you, the main one was our situation. It was hard to admit how I felt, even to myself. But, I don’t care anymore. We aren’t related. Joe never pretended we were siblings. I had my dad even if I couldn’t live with him anymore. And I thought about my mom all the time. 

I don’t think there is something I can compare those years too. It’s unique. I was part of the West family but at the same time, I wasn’t. I guess I knew that Joe took me in because you and I were best friends. So, in a very weird way, it was kind of like he was already my father-in-law who just happened to meet me as a child and partially raise me?”

None of that made sense to Iris. She gaped at him. Barry sat up and saw that Iris was still concerned. He scratched the back of his neck, searching for a better way to explain it. 

“Did you ever think of me as your brother?” Barry asked, slightly scared of the answer.

“No.” Iris answered truthfully. “I still thought of you as my best friend. My best friend who I was having a permanent sleepover with.”

“There you go!” Barry threw his hands in the air. He was relieved that Iris found the right words to describe their time in the same house. Of course Iris would be able to put into words what he was struggling to express, that’s what made her such a great writer.

“How did you stop feeling bad about liking me?”

“When I went away to college, I considered telling you how I felt. I thought we might work now that we weren’t in the same house. I chickened out. I was scared you’d think I was perv or something. But during college, we were at different schools hundreds of miles apart. That’s the farthest apart we’ve ever been from each other. And I was still thinking about you constantly. I knew it wasn’t a crush. I was in love with you. It had nothing to do with being so close to you. It had everything to do with you being my best friend. You moved back in with Joe after graduation, I got my own place because I hoped that someday I was going to tell you how I felt and we could be together without it being awkward.”

This calmed Iris down. She replayed his words in her head and noticed something. She giggled “Is that why you were embarrassed to kiss me in front of my dad when we first started dating?”

“Well, yeah. He’s your dad and kind of like my dad. He’s out Joe!”

Iris joined Barry on the bed. They laid down together. Barry put one arm around Iris to pull her close. Their finger intertwined and their eyes locked. 

“I think our situation made it hard for me to admit how I felt too.” Iris said. “I thought of you as my best friend but I had feelings that went beyond friendship. I knew that since we lived together, we were closer than most best friends. I guess I attributed my feelings to that. I’m glad you finally told me you loved me. If you hadn’t, I think I’d still be in denial.”

“I love you.” Barry said. “And I will never keep that a secret from you again.”


End file.
